


Snapshots of Attraction

by doenerkint



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, One Shot, Romance, Snapshots, Year 4, rated T
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-17 20:42:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28731384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doenerkint/pseuds/doenerkint
Summary: A series of moments caught between Harry and Fleur as they progress through their lives. Starts at Year 4 [Oneshot, Rated T] [Harry/Fleur]
Relationships: Fleur Delacour & Harry Potter, Fleur Delacour/Harry Potter
Comments: 6
Kudos: 35





	Snapshots of Attraction

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Just a basic disclaimer to do my due diligence. I do not own any element that originated from HP, those are solely in the possession of JKR. I just borrowed them to play.
> 
> I would also like to thank my beta-readers DavidtheAthenai, Raphael the Older Nameless, and SoInstantPlayz for their work. Without them, I might very well strike you as illiterate.
> 
> That's it. Please enjoy.

Snapshots of Attraction

Click

Harry chuckled at the scene that was unfolding before him. Glassy eyes and dazed gazes followed her through her swift walk past the tables in the Great Hall, her face indifferent to the absurdity that was the large portion of the local male population following her about since her arrival at Hogwarts.

She eyed him as she passed, her sudden glare scorching a hole through him that made him jump in surprise, dropping the arm his head rested on to his side. The grin he'd plastered on before now long gone from his face.

Click

"He cannot possibly be considered a champion. He's but a little boy."

Harry eyed her with disdain.

Click

They passed each other at the entrance without granting the other an inkling of attention. Once out of earshot, Harry turned back to gaze upon her receding form, her words from the Antechamber still echoing in his ears. For the second time, the memory of her assessment of him caused a frown to mar his features. He turned his gaze back to Hagrid's hut.

They walked past each other at the ancient-looking gate, a structure that'd be considered crude next to Beauxbatons carefully drawn doors, without a glimpse of acknowledgment. The moment it would be acceptable, Fleur turned her face to eye the boy's shrinking form, his glare from that night in the Chamber of Champions cutting into her in accusation. Her choice of words reminding her of her immaturity, she made fists with her hands in self-reflection and turned herself back toward the path leading to the Great Hall.

Click

"I thought you should know. That's all." He explained plainly.

"This is a competition. What you may consider fairness, will cost you in the end. I won't make the same concession for you." She spoke sharply.

He shrugged at her. "As is your right, Miss."

Click

Harry saw her studying in the library, a pile of books circling her like walls of Hogwarts. A quick inquiry with Hermione answered the question as to what the books were about.

He smiled to himself in response.

Click

"Fleur." She stated.

He eyed her with a frown fixed on his face in confusion. "Sorry?"

"You may call me Fleur." She repeated.

Harry's frown slowly morphed into blandness before hinting at a smile.

"Very well." He began. "I wish you the best of luck, Fleur."

Click

She saw him sitting on a bench by his lonesome, his gaze turned toward the Black Lake, his eyes seemingly in deep contemplation.

Her heart felt a small sting.

Click

"Who's there?" She jumped, her arms raised in defense.

He lifted his hand in apology. "Sorry, sorry. I didn't mean to scare you."

Recognizing the voice, she lowered her arms just as fast as her sense of fight or flight did.

"Of course, I'm sorry. I was deep in thought and did not hear you approach." she offered.

He shrugged at her, a small smile passing his face. "I am good at sneaking around. Something I've had to pick up when I was quite young."

"And you've used it to stalk me now after I fled the ballroom?" She asked with a smirk, her heart jumping at the unintentional but obvious flirtation.

Surprised at the insinuation, he waved his hand in the negative. "No, Merlin. No." He said quickly. "I just happened to see your heated exchange with Davis and thought to check on you."

She graced him with an honest smile before opening her mouth to speak.

"That's very sweet of you, Harry. Thank you for caring." She nodded at him.

After a moment of awkward silence, he cleared his throat and excused himself after wishing her a good night.

Ensuring he was no longer there, Fleur sighed to herself.

"A little boy, huh?" Fleur shook her head, briefly squeezing her eyes shut in regret.

Click

Her wet hand palmed his cheek, fear, gratitude, and insecurity crossing her features in a dance, each emotion fighting with another.

A moment later, she settled on one. Warmth spread on one side of his face. It wasn't the warmth of pain.

Click

She looked fatigued and weary with dark circles drawn around her eyes. Her head supported by her open palm under her cheek, her gaze met his.

Harry was more than surprised to see her vanish from the hall a moment later, many pairs of eyes following her retreating form equally as intense.

"She's been having nightmares." Hermione mentioned, her voice underlying concern for the fair-maned stranger.

At the questioning look from Harry, Hermione elaborated. "From what I've been told, she's been screaming her little sister's name in her sleep."

Click

"It's not your fault, Fleur." Harry clarified as he glanced at her from the side.

He'd thought a walk around the grounds would help distract her from her troubles but whether it helped remained to be seen.

"I know." She said hotly, her face laden with growing frustration.

Harry remained quiet as he continued walking beside her, a healthy distance between them.

"But it doesn't change that I failed." She began anew. "If this had been real...if this hadn't been an organized event with fail-safes and security measures, my sister would've died. And it would have been on me." She gasped at the end.

Click

They stood opposite from each other, both unsure how to say goodbye without meaning 'farewell'.

"Do you have an address I can write to? Will the owl find you if I just write down your name?" She asked gingerly.

"I don't know. My living situation right now isn't ideal, and I sometimes move around during the summer. Owls have been able to find me so far, but they were either owls coming from the Ministry, Hogwarts, or someone from...my family. I don't know if your owl would find me if I'm honest." He answered, his voice espousing a sense of apprehension.

"I'm confident my mail will find its way to you, Harry." She offered confidently at first, but her features made way for a touch of uncertainty as well.

"For what it's worth, I truly enjoyed your company these past few months, all things considered. I would hate it if we let this slip through our fingers." She said, clearing her throat.

"So write to me, Harry." She uttered, the words dancing between a plea and an order.

Harry, made speechless by her unusual display, could only nod in reply.

Click

Harry waited outside the bank, pacing at the bottom of the stairs with his hands dug into the pockets of his trousers. People passed him as he walked gingerly, sometimes recognizing him and nodding while others rushed past him, not giving him a second look.

He'd been lucky to leave Hogwarts on a weekend, using the Marauders' Map to evade detection and make his way to Diagon Alley when no other students would be shopping here and possibly exposing him. The sudden invitation by Fleur to come meet her had struck him as a positive surprise, having previously remained in contact solely by mail. And despite not having seen her since the day they said their goodbyes, he felt the correspondence drew a well enough picture of her life since then. Finally spying her at the top of the stairs, he jerked for a millisecond at the person appearing beside her. He'd been wrong.

Click

"You're marrying him?" he asked in surprise.

She hummed affirmatively.

"I thought you hated it here. You said you'd probably leave soon after perfecting the language." He accused her, his voice betraying his disappointment.

"I said many things in my life and not all came to pass, Harry. I don't see how that is any of your business." She returned, a touch sharper than she'd intended.

Harry glared at her.

"I thought we were friends, Fleur. I thought you'd tell me something this important earlier. You didn't even mention you and Bill were being serious. That it was simply to have somebody to talk to at work."

Fleur glared back, her tongue preparing itself for a lashing.

"We are friends or at least I know what being a friend entails. You, however, seem to be under the illusion that I must report everything that goes on in my life to you. Even friendship has its boundaries and you don't see them, apparently."

Harry dropped his hands to his sides, a sigh escaping him, his gaze turning away from hers.

"If it's one thing I've learned about friendship, it's that it comes in many shapes and forms and remains in motion. Some improve through hardship and others break at the slightest disagreement. I'd thought that whatever happened to us during the tournament, that this bond we've forged, this friendship that you wanted as much as I did, would have earned me the privilege to at least hear of this earlier. Instead, you've hidden this from me."

"And you? What about your secrets, Harry? What about this burden you obviously seem to carry around with you? You won't tell me what it is and you won't let me help. For months I've asked and every time you've rebuffed my attempts. I still remember what happened after the third task. The distress was real, the fear was true, you weren't delusional or trying to exploit what happened but still, you won't repeat what happened and you won't let me help you."

"This isn't your fight Fleur. I won't burden you with my knowledge. Hell, I myself don't know how it all fits together. I seem to be surrounded by eggshells. My friends won't tell me anything and Dumbledore remains elusive whenever I try to confront him." He paused.

"How then can I tell you anything if I myself don't know anything. Except that I won't be able to escape it." He finished with a whisper.

Fleur eyed him carefully, her frustration ebbing away.

"All this you could have told me and I would have been there to comfort you. As you've done for me before even though I'd not asked you to. Instead, I've felt our friendship growing distant, with each platitude coming in the mail, I've taken another step back and so did you."

Harry returned his gaze to her oceanic blue eyes that seemed to have taken on a look of defeat.

"If I were honest with you, Harry, I felt something for you. Something deeper than friendship. I admit the age gap did concern me quite a bit at first, but the times you had talked to me, even when I'd been anything but kind to you, have taught me important lessons. Things I have taken to heart since then. Things I don't see in you so clearly anymore. Things I've grown to miss in you."

Harry, unsure what to make of her confession, swallowed.

"Why didn't you ever say anything?"

"I don't know, maybe because the times have changed, and people grew fearful. My family urged me to cut ties with you to protect myself in case the stories were true. That further associating with you would endanger us."

"But you came to England regardless." He stated.

"But I came regardless because I wanted to be near you. To show you that I cared that I'd come when you needed me. That I wasn't afraid of what you hid from me in your letters." She explained.

"And now you're marrying Bill." He stated further.

"Now, I'm marrying Bill." She nodded.

Click

They sat in the Great Hall, the tables long gone having been replaced by tents and piles of medical supplies for the coming siege of Hogwarts. The air was charged with apprehension, of those walking and whispering around the two of them.

Fleur prepared rolls of bandages, a task she was handed by Madame Pomfrey, the older woman as stern as ever when it came to the healing arts. The younger woman sitting across from him took it in stride, despite being relegated to what she referred to as "work for second fiddle".

Despite the important role he'd been given in the fight to come, he'd decided to make time to sit possibly for the last time with a friend whom he cherished. Finishing another roll of a bandage, he cleared his throat to ask her something that had been on his mind for a while now.

"If you knew back then what you know now, Fleur," he paused for effect, "would you have still decided to come to England and gone through it all?"

She remained focused on her work but eyed him briefly before gazing back at the bandage in her hands.

"It has been hard for me, yes, but so it has been for anyone else who's decided to come in defense of their loved ones and their beliefs. I am no exception and perhaps because I know what is still to come, I would have had more reason to join than I already did then." Her voice remained perfectly even, not a touch of a waiver audible.

"If I'd known what was going to happen, I would have tried harder to find a way to prevent any of you from coming here. Ever since he returned, all I could think about was how to keep him out of everyone's lives, to keep him from hurting more people, from targeting friends and loved ones. And all I've managed is the opposite."

Fleur stopped fiddling with the bandages, dropping the one she held on the table and reaching for his hand instead. Grasping his hand, she urged him to raise his gaze to hers.

"Harry, you are not everyone's savior. The prophecy may have selected you to strike at the right moment, but in no way does it say that you would have to do it by your lonesome. And look around you," she gazed around them "everyone you see here came of their own volition. Not because you'd asked, not because they've been told. They came because they felt it in their hearts that it must be done. Everyone you see here feels the same way you do about their loved ones. That they'd wish to spare them the horrors and protect them from the gruesome future that laid in store for them."

Releasing her hand from his, she returned to rolling the bandages.

"The same applies to me. I came to protect my loved ones and those who can't protect themselves. I came to protect you when you needed me the most." She spoke so only he could hear her.

"I came to protect the little boy I met all these years ago. The man who sits across from me now."

Harry's voice died in his throat, his counter-argument admitting defeat before being even uttered. She in turn cleared her throat at that and swallowed.

"So whatever you were thinking of telling me or arguing with me, don't. We'll have enough opportunity to talk after this is over." She instructed him, hoping he'd accept her fake attempt at confidence.

He studied her for a moment before settling on a smile. Nodding to himself, he got up from the bench he was sitting on, his backside slightly sore and evidence of the time they spent sitting together.

Before leaving he spoke again, a final message on his lips.

"Thank you, Fleur." he offered.

She stopped what she was doing and gazed up at him.

"What for?"

"For being my friend."

She returned a smile that reached her eyes.

As he turned to leave, she secretly eyed his form as it shrank in the distance. She still remembered this silhouette well enough, having watched it many times and with each time her heart would sting. A sting for every time she'd find herself wishing she'd made a different choice at a junction of her life.

"Toujours, mon petit garçon." she whispered to herself.

Click

They stared at one another in silence, shock marring both their faces. Their noses still an inch from the other, their breaths remained labored.

"Why?" He breathed.

She gazed at him with mixed feelings but settled on telling him.

"I needed you to know." She uttered before stepping away slowly and disappearing through the dust of war.

Click

Fleur stood waiting on platform 9 ¾ leaning against one of the pillars supporting the roof of the station. The smell of steam and smoke burned into the red brick walls that lined the platform, espousing the ages that must have passed through here. Decades upon decades of young minds coming here to bear witness to nature's greatest wonders, magic.

On this day, however, it would be the last time he would be stepping along this platform, saying his final farewell to a place he'd called home since the age of eleven. A place he learned of his parents and heritage, a place where he found long-lasting friends and the place where they'd met.

Letting her gaze travel along the platform, she spied a set of red hair a bit further away from her. She noticed one of the forms belonging to her former mother-in-law standing next to her son George. The eyes of the elder witch and matriarch of the Weasley clan turned to meet Fleur's stare, offering a kind nod and melancholic smile.

Fleur offered a nod in return, despite the sense of guilt that poured from the chest, forcing her to raise her hand to her chest to cover it.

The split between Bill and herself was amicable, difficult but accepted on both sides. She tried at first to save their marriage, working herself to the bone to make his life easier but what he needed, she couldn't provide. He began to talk to her less and less, abandoning her to a home by herself with a ghost of a man sharing it with her.

Soon he'd moved to his mother's, who did her best to comfort him but his affliction and the experiences during the war had left deep scars that threatened to shatter him as a person. She feared that if it hadn't then, it would have happened by now.

A few months after the victory at Hogwarts, he'd made the decision that would change her life forever. The divorce procedures were strangely numbing. In just a day, the years of walks and talks, the sharing of secrets and promises of a long life together, were brought down with one signature with a blood quill. A path she'd thought to be final, breaking apart before her eyes.

And now she stood there, wearing a black leather jacket, a light blue shirt, and greyed jeans with black boots completing her outfit, waiting for him to finally arrive. The bespectacled man with piercing emerald eyes.

Click

"You think it was wise to invite the Weasleys to our wedding?" Her voice quivered, a touch worried.

His head turned to look at her, a smile appearing and not a worry marring his features.

"You still believe they'd hold a grudge against you for remarrying?"

She eyed him guiltily.

"Fleur," he spoke while getting up from the bed, "it's been years since then. I think you've punished yourself long enough. Molly doesn't hold anything against you for what happened to Bill and neither does he. I'm sure they all truly wish for you to live a happy life. I do too." He rubbed her arms in comfort.

"If we've learned anything after what we've lived through, I strongly believe it should be the appreciation for the present."

Click

The couple walked through the tight streets of the Italian town, niches upon niches offering spots to pepper kisses between lovers, whispering sweet nothings to one another.

Fleur walked ahead of him, pulling him along toward the coast that was lined with a wooden promenade for people to take long romantic strolls on.

Reaching the edge of the guardrail of the promenade, Fleur turned and supported herself against it, gazing deeply into the eyes of her husband. Her oceanic blue facing his emerald green.

Biting her lip, she quietly whispered something into his ear, a look of surprise forming on his face.

His gaze dropped to her belly, reaching to palm it with the fingers stretched far apart to hold as much of it as he could.

Raising his eyes back to hers, she waited apprehensively for a response. His sense of shock making way for a look of pure joy, he uttered quiet words.

Her teeth shone brilliantly in the sun in response, before the mouth that housed them crashed into his.

Click

"Is this normal?" Harry asked Jean, Fleur's father.

The older man chuckled. "There is nothing normal about birth. It is everything."

Harry nodded fearfully at that, lowering his head back down on his palms, massaging it in worry.

Another scream echoed through the door, loud French words being thrown around, bouncing off the walls. His name also being dropped along on occasion amongst them.

"What is she saying?" Harry asked his father-in-law.

The man looked at him in humor, considering his response for a few moments before offering an answer.

"Nothing that will matter once it's over. Soon she will be cooing and full of praises."

Click

Harry laid on the summer chair on the balcony of their room, his daughter Elise comfortably resting on his chest, snoring along to his quiet breaths.

Fleur's heart warmed as she continued to observe them over her fashion magazine.

Click

"What is love, Papa?" Elise asked her father as she walked around the table to come sit next to him. Fleur hid a smile behind her mug of coffee.

"Uhm," he began, unsure how to explain such a philosophical question in terms a 5-year-old would understand.

He then began to sing. "Baby, don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no more."

Fleur snorted to his response, huffing and coughing as some of the liquid dripped from her nose.

Harry quickly went to fetch a tissue to help Fleur wipe her face and the spilled drink. He then turned back to his little girl pointing to his wife meaningfully.

"That is love." he offered in response to which Fleur smacked him.

Click

"Will you tell me now what she's saying?" he asked his father-in-law.

He dropped his newspaper, eyeing Harry thoughtfully before listening to the yells behind the closed door.

He then clears his throat to answer him.

"Nothing you don't already know."

Harry unsatisfied with the answer, shook his head at Jean.

"This time she's louder, faster and my name pops up almost every time she starts a new sentence." He counted.

"And that's all that matters, shouldn't it?" His father-in-law offered before returning to his newspaper.

Click

Harry observed his wife holding their youngest in her arms as they swam in the ocean, the water a beautiful turquoise that refracted the light into dancing crystals on the seafloor.

The radiant smile on Fleur's face spoke volumes of this small piece of happiness that they had built for themselves.

She turned her gaze away from her daughter toward Harry. Even from across the beach he could tell what she was thinking, eyeing him so intensely, her blue eyes drew him to her without another word.

Picking up Elise from the sand and dragging her away from her malformed sandcastle, she moaned in frustration before she admitted defeat and joined her father on his way to her mother and younger sister.

Click

Sitting at the bride's table, the pair observed the dancing crowd in front of them.

"So, this is it then." Harry commented.

Fleur turned her head in question, a frown forming on her face.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"They're gone, off to raise their own families." He sighed.

She turned her head toward where her youngest danced with her husband. Smiling to herself, Fleur reached for his hand, interlacing their fingers into one another.

"As long as they're well and healthy and have children of their own, I'm happy." She spoke, not looking at him.

He nodded at that. "Yeah."

A few moments of silence later, Harry asked his wife a question she had not expected.

"Any regrets, Fleur?"

She turned to look at her husband, a frown of confusion on her face.

"You ask me that now?"

"Yeah?"

"No."

"Sure?"

"Yes!"

"Not even a little?"

"What are you getting at?"

He smiled at her annoyed look and nodded toward the dance floor.

"What?"

"The song."

"What about it?"

"Doesn't it strike you as familiar?"

She waited to listen to it more clearly and before long a realization dawned on her.

"The ball."

He hummed affirmatively. "So, any regrets?"

"Do you have any?" she posed in turn.

"Yup."

"What?"

He grinned and got off the chair before walking around the table to come to a halt before her.

"Would you, Miss Delacour, honor me with the privilege of a dance at this ball?" He asked, his hand raised in offering.

Her heart quickened

"Why yes, Monsieur Potter." She answered immediately.

Click

Elise stood next to her younger sister as they studied the epitaph on the large gravestone, their faces stricken with grief and long dried tears having trailed dark lines on their cheeks.

"You think they'd have liked it?" Liliane asked her elder sister.

"Papa was ever the pragmatist; he'd have cared little for what people did in his honor but I'm sure Maman would have loved this."

They both chuckled but the heaviness of the situation pressed down on their laughs.

"Maman was never the same after he passed." Liliane began. "She kept telling me that people have an infinite capacity to love but that there only ever would be one true love."

Elise snaked her arm around her sister's. "They were the envy of us all. Even my friends would sometimes look with jealousy at how much they cared for each other."

Hearing the other attendees leaving after having paid their respects, the sisters wiped at each other's dry tears before hugging one another tightly.

"Let's talk soon and set a time for a play date. I don't want Emilie to be alone these days." Elise offered.

"Yeah, please do." Liliane returned, a grateful smile gracing her face. They both then broke apart to join their husbands and children on the path leading back to the parking lot where all the other attendees waited to leave as well.

As the crowd shrank, the sounds of conversations and shoes walking on gravel subsided, leaving only the rustling of leaves to comfort the lonesome piece of stone in the center of the small piece of land.

A fluttering of wings could be heard approaching the stone, the sound of other animals' calls quickly quieting down in response. The large bird, a white owl, landed comfortably on the stone and turned its head to read the inscription.

The bird seemed satisfied and turned its head again to fly off again, its fluttering wings disappearing into the dying light of the day, the sun's last reddish rays gracing the stone with its last light, illuminating the words for a moment.

Ici gisent le petit garçon avec sa belle fleur.

Parents, amis et héros bien-aimés.

Puissent-ils reposer en paix.

***

Here lay The Little Boy with His Beautiful Flower.

Beloved Parents, Friends, and Heroes.

May they Rest in Peace.

Click

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Hope you liked it well enough that you might want to leave a review. If you've discovered mistakes, please feel free to point them out to me. English isn't my first language, so there may very well be some odd lingual quirks.
> 
> Also, if you like the H/F pairing as much as I do and would like to share your passion with like-minded authors and readers, perhaps consider joining the flowerpot server at /Xn7ExYgh.


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